Nico Rosberg will keep his pole position at Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix after the stewards decided to take no further action against him for his off-track excursion at Mirabeau during Q3.

Rosberg locked up and ran wide during his final run in qualifying, taking to the escape road at Mirabeau and prompting yellow flags on the approach to the corner. The timing of the mistake meant the cars behind, including team-mate Lewis Hamilton who was on a faster lap, could not set a better time and Rosberg's first attempt was enough to secure pole.

After calling Rosberg to the stewards' office and examining the data, the Mercedes driver was cleared of any wrongdoing.

"The stewards examined the video and telemetry data from the team and FIA and could find no evidence of any offence related to the Turn 5 incident."

Asked about the incident after the session, Rosberg said: "That's the whole reason I had a banker [lap], so I just tried to push that little bit more and pushed over the edge."

He added: "I thought it was over once that happened, I thought the track would ramp up and somebody would beat it. I'm sorry for what happened to Lewis. I didn't know where exactly he was. It's not great, but that's the way it is…"

The incident had shades of Michael Schumacher's controversial qualifying lap in 2006 when he took provisional pole and hit the barriers at La Rascasse only to have his times deleted by the stewards after an investigation.